Since I was a kid, I have been surrounded by different languages. My mother would sing Malayalam (a South Indian language) lullabies to me as a baby, and on my infant trips to India, Malaylam would surround me eveywhere. Last year, when we had visited India, I spoke to my maternal grandmother about learning Malayalam. I told her I remember learning the Malayalam alphabet formally as a young toddler, and hating it, as most toddlers do. She recalled all the Malaylam words I knew as a kid, and as she listed them off, I realized I had no ideas what these words meant now. As I grew up, with less frequent trips to India, and my mother using Malayalam less and less around the house, my knowledge of it has faded. Without the Indian immersion, I barely know my "mothertongue" now.
Of course, my true mothertongue is English, and my birthland is America, where foreign language education is not highly valued. Some Americans have an attitude of, "I don't have to learn another language, the rest of the world is learning MY language, English!" While there is a small truth to this, it really can stunt the true potential of our minds.
